FlowerFest 2015: at the Basinger Plot

Across the sandy lane from the Starr plot is the Basinger plot. The large central marker is for Sugar’s great-grandfather William Starr Basinger and wife Margaret Roane Garnett Basinger. Sugar’s brother, mother, and grandmother are also there, plus other Basinger relatives. 

 

My back is to the Starr plot.

  
    
 
This is a very shady lot, and I’ve never gotten a bright picture of it. We have been faithful to these people since we started bringing flowers in 2009. We didn’t bring flowers at Easter this year because I had to work that day, and Sugar doesn’t want to come alone. I still regret that we missed Easter, even though this is a self-imposed duty and we’re not winning any prizes. 

 

He points at his mother’s and brother’s graves off to our left.

  
    
 
Onward!

The Will of William Starr Basinger

I can’t get these online fast enough. 

 
 
    

The Gold Mine in the Closet: Basingers with Bicycles

Even though this photo is not completely identified with people or a timestamp, we know that it was before 1910, which is when the father, Major William Starr Basinger, died in Athens, Georgia.

William Starr Basinger and his wife Margaret Roane Garnett Basinger had six children that lived to adulthood.  During the end of his life, they went to live with their oldest daughter Margaret who married Charles Morton Strahan.  Uncle Charlie was a professor at the University of Georgia at Athens for over 60 years, and he and Margaret had a house on the campus where the Law Library is located now.

There are two boys in the photo, but which two boys are these?  The older two, James Garnett Basinger and William Starr Basinger, Jr., who graduated from UGA, or the younger two, Thomas Garnett Basinger and Walter Garnett Basinger, or a mix of the two?  At any rate, that’s definitely Margaret Amelia “Aunt Mag” Basinger Strahan with her parents, William Starr Basinger and Margaret Roane Garnett Basinger.

This is taken, we believe, on the back porch at the Strahan house on the campus.

Two Basinger brothers, their father William Starr Basinger, their mother Margaret Roane Garnett Basinger, and their sister Margaret Basinger Strahan.

We know that this is the Strahan house because Sugar said so.  We have also seen this house in other photos.

Like these three…

Again at the Strahan house at the University of Georgia in Athens. There’s Matilda Basinger with her mother “Batesie”, an unidentified woman, Genette, Garnett Basinger standing in front of her great-grandmother Margaret Roane Garnett Basinger, Mary “Leslie” Basinger Lawton, and Lillie.

 

Perhaps around 1923 or 1924. Genette is in the back of this trio. The other two are most probably her cousins Garnett and Matilda. They are at the Strahan house on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens.

Another online resource that I am newly interested in is newspapers.com.

I found this clipping regarding the two oldest Basinger boys, who were in the class of 1890 at the University of Georgia in Athens.

From the Atlanta Constitution, June 15, 1890

 

 

William S. Basinger, Jr., of Dahlonega, is

the son of Maj. W. S. Basinger, president of

that college.  He is a member of the

S. A. E. fraternity and Phi Kappa lit-

erary society.  He is the youngest

man in the graduating class, and is

first-honor man in the Master of Arts course.

He is one of the brightest men in college,

and will make his mark.  He, too, will be a

lawyer.

James Garnett Basinger is also a son of

Major W. S. Basinger.  Like his brother, he

took first honor in A. M. in the class of ’89,

and took a post-graduate course this year, in

which he receives the degree of C. and M. E.

He is a member of S. A. E. and Phi Kappa.

Civil engineering will claim his genius.

Something remarkable about these boys is their age.  William Starr Basinger, Jr., is graduating from college to become an attorney at age 17, and won’t turn 18 until August 28, 1890.  James Garnett Basinger, the oldest, has graduated the year before in 1889 at age 19, and has finished a post-graduate course in 1890 at age 20.  It is helpful to note that James Garnett Basinger has just turned 20 on May 27, 1890, so he’s still extremely young.

Now I’m wondering if this is a graduation photo and the boys received bicycles for graduation presents.  I suppose it’s possible.

Thanks, Sugar, for sharing another photo from the gold mine in the closet!

The Gold Mine in the Closet: William Starr Basinger and Margaret Roane Garnett

Everybody knows about William Starr Basinger and Margaret Roane Garnett, right?  ‘Cause I’m single-handedly making them rock stars, 1800’s fashion.  You can read more about them here, and if you want, you can search the blog for Basinger or Garnett, and you’ll find boat-loads of stuff in general.

Sugar found in his closet gold mine two photos, one each of William Starr Basinger and Margaret Roane Garnett.  He believes that W. S. Basinger is in his 20’s, and that Margaret is perhaps somewhere between 16 and 20 years old, so I’m wondering if it was a tradition back in the day to have your photo made at about age 20.  Any thoughts?  I know you have them.

The curious thing to me about these photos, and you’ll see what I mean, is that they are on the same kind of paper, the same size, and the vintage looks the same.  They were stored together, and have the bottom left hand corner broken off, like the two photos were stacked together and the corner became bent and broken completely off.

His is darker with more contrast.  So I’m thinking that someone within the last hundred years took two existing photos and had them reproduced.

When we were in Richmond last year on our history mystery trip, we ate at Garnett’s Cafe (no there is not a family discount).  Our waitress looked EXACTLY like Margaret Roane Garnett.  I mean identical.  I wanted to take her picture, and Sugar said that I should not, and we had a conversation that consisted of hissing back and forth in an effort to be heard and also to be quiet, like older people do.  Of course, I did ask our waitress if she was related or if her name just happened to be Margaret.  Apparently, she’s heard the first part but not the second, and neither were true.

I swear she was Margaret Roane Garnett in jeans and T-shirt.  Same face and build, same dark hair.

A curious coincidence that I’m calling this series “The Gold Mine in the Closet”, and the Basinger family lived for a while in Dahlonega, Georgia, which was the site of the first major U.S. gold rush.

Will these photos ever end?  Apparently not.

I’m typing like crazy, and editing photos, and watching the movies in my head.

And it’s all for you, people.  ALL FOR YOU.  (Sorry, all caps means I might be a little deranged.)

Back to the Basingers: Sugar Finds a Gold-Mine in a Closet

Sugar has a closet with odd, assorted items in it, all pertaining to his family.  It’s like a little time capsule.

He knew that he had some photos of when his parents would go to Edisto Island and stay with Chalmers and Faith Murray.  He’s not really sure how those four met up, and none of the photos actually had Chalmers in them.  He was a busy fellow.  Google him – you’ll see.  He was an attorney, an author, a writer, and editor, a speaker.

So the time machine was activated, and Sugar found photos of Edisto, but that wasn’t all.  He found photos of his mother as a little child, photos of his mother’s mother, and other family members, then he found a jaw-dropper.

*****

We went on a little history tour earlier this year in March.  He took some photos of the William Starr Basinger family to a local Staples to be copied so that he could present them to the historical society in Lumpkin County, Georgia.  You might remember reading about our follow-up visit in the historical society’s newsletter.  Good times.

He was pretty sure that he got the family photo from another cousin in Savannah, until he pulled out the original from the closet box, and O MY.  There is handwriting on the back that identifies the people.

But wait for it.  There’s ANOTHER photo of the same family with the parents and the children, also all identified.

Y’all, please.  Go get those photos out of the closet and scan them.  NOW.

Dahlonega, Ga.

The Basinger family

Leslie, Tom, Auntie, Grandma

Walter, Mamma, Papa,

Maggie, Ate’

 

 

J. N. Wilson, Savannah, Ga., 1885

The Basingers

Garnett, Mag, Will

Leslie, Maj. Basinger,

Walter, Mrs. Basinger,

Tom

 

(I used an automatic adjustment feature on the computer program to alter the lightness/darkness of the back of the 2nd photo.  It made the handwriting more distinct, but also changed the color.)

In Which I am a Historian, Part 2

Last year, another writer called me a “Historian”.  You can visit J’aime Rubio’s investigative blog by clicking on the link.

I.  Like.  It.

This past March, Sugar and I went to Dahlonega, Georgia, on a William Starr Basinger pilgrimage. The historical society’s newsletter for June, 2014, did a write-up of the occasion. They mailed the newsletter to us, and if you want to check out their website, take a look by clicking here.

 

In Search of William Starr Basinger, or Sugar Plans a Vacation

Sugar wants to go on a trip.  He has pestered me to death about going on a trip.  I suggest that we just get in the car.  He has different plans.

He wants to go on a Basinger pilgrimage.  Yes, can you believe that there is one left?  After all, we’ve gone all over Savannah, looking at cemetery plots and locations of former homes and businesses.  We’ve been to the library.  We’ve talked to Starr cousins.  We went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library and viewed the William Starr Basinger collection.  We’ve been to Amelia County, Virginia, to Mattoax to see where he met his wife Margaret Roane Garnett, and then on to Richmond to see where the family home “The Oaks” was moved.  Yes, it seems there is some unfinished business.

So the trip is planned that we will go to the University of Georgia at Athens to walk the campus and see where Uncle Charlie’s house used to be, then on to Dahlonega to see if we can find the location of William Starr Basinger’s home, and then an additional spur into Sewanee, Tennessee, to see a Basinger cousin with an extra attempt to find out more about Sugar’s father’s father who went to school at Sewanee.

Have you ever traveled by car with fresh seafood in a cooler?  For days, like, traveled FOR DAYS with seafood in a styrofoam cooler.  Me, either.  And we lived to tell about it.